ELEHE: editorial for Vol 6 No 1

Editorial

Anna Crouch, Rachel Maunder, Simon Sneddon, Scott Turner

Abstract

Editorial for the 2014 issue

Full Text:

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References

Kell, P. and Vogl, G. (2012) International students in the Asia Pacific: mobility, risks and global optimism. Springer.

National Union of Students (2012) Student experience research 2012: Part 1: Teaching and learning: Student experience research to gain insight into the quality of the learning experience. National Union of Students. Available at: http://www.nus.org.uk/PageFiles/12238/2012_NUS_QAA_Teaching_and_Learning.pdf (accessed 7/12/14)

The Journal Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education can be found at: http://journals.northampton.ac.uk/index.php/elehe/index

Vol 5 Editorial

Editorial

Rachel Maunder, Simon Sneddon, Scott Turner, Anna Crouch

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14234/elehe.v5i1.84

We would like to welcome readers to this edition of Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education (ELEHE), and would like to thank all our authors and reviewers for their valuable contributions to the issue. The heart of this journal is the students’ voice and learning experience, and how practitioners internationally are informed by these. The papers included in this edition reflect this agenda well, and demonstrate a sustained commitment to enhancing the experience of learners in higher education.
Again, we are pleased that we have been able to draw on and publish inter-disciplinary research, critical case studies, and works in progress related to current debates – all of which have an emphasis on improving students’ experiences, and valuing students’ voices.
We are also pleased to announce that the University of Northampton, which publishes ELEHE, has registered with CrossRef to allow us to allocate Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to published articles. Each ELEHE article now has a DOI and through this we hope to increase the reach and impact of the papers. We are extremely grateful to Miggie Pickton and Wes Homard- Roy for all of their work on this. For more information read Miggie’s Blog here and the ELEHE blog here.
This edition of the journal contains an eclectic selection of papers, examining a range of educational issues including employability, doctoral training, online learning, storytelling and academic failure.
Firstly, Clark’s study (p.3) reports on students undertaking an employability and skills award. He highlights the value of using qualitative techniques to aid our understanding of ’subjectivities’ in the student experience, which contrast to the ‘predominant emphasis on quantifiable outcomes’ (p.16) underpinning measures of graduate employability. Challenging conventional approaches to studying an issue is also highlighted in Blair’s paper about reducing high failure rates (p.21). He triggers debate into the way in which research in this field has traditionally been a ‘focus on the positive’ (p.21) by exploring factors contributing to student success, rather than seeking to understand reasons for failure. On first glance, Blair’s paper could be seen as being a ‘how to’ guide, and indeed it does make five useful recommendations for improving undergraduate courses with high failure rates. The inclusion of the student voice into this debate is crucial, and FitzPatrick et al. (p.38) draw on student feedback in order to evaluate the innovative use of photo-narrative storytelling in a large lecture class as a means of ‘building connections between theory and the real-world’ (p.41). Smith McGloin (p.49) also draws on the student voice in her work in progress piece looking at the experience of postgraduate research students in a doctoral training partnership. In addition, and Fitzgerald and Corazzo (p.58) report on feedback from students participating in online focus groups in order to study the experience of distance learners.

Finally, Clarke (p.65) has reviewed Silverman’s ‘Very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book’ about quantitative research, and hails it to be a ‘refreshing and valuable contribution’ (p.66) to the literature because of its concern ‘with stimulating reflection and debate rather than providing a traditional ‘how to’ approach’ (p.66). This drive for reflection and debate underpins the ELEHE ethos, and the type of research which we are keen to promote.
One emerging theme arising from the papers is the issue of relevance, and the need for learning to be authentic for students. In the paper by FitzPatrick et al. exploring the benefits of storytelling using photo narrative, the feedback from students highlighted how the class activity enabled them to translate abstract theoretical concepts into the real world and make valuable theory-practice links which were related directly to their own knowledge and experience. The value of providing examples to learners is also discussed by Clark in his review of the Silverman book. In this text on qualitative research, case illustrations are used extensively to demonstrate the application of qualitative research practices - which Clark sees as a real strength of the resource. Similarly, in Smith McGloin’s paper on experiences of doctoral training, doctoral students report how the training they receive needs to be relevant to their needs and pitched appropriately - with lower feedback ratings for ‘generic’ training which was not perceived to be appropriately tailored for them. Fitzgerald and Corazzo’s study into the experience of distance learning highlighted the need for data collection tools (in this case, online focus groups) to be tailored to the needs of the group, taking into account factors such as time difference and technical issues. On courses with high failure rates, Blair recommends integrating more practical work to facilitate the application of knowledge to other situations. Additionally, Clark discusses employability awards designed to prepare students for the workplace, where student feedback emphasised the importance of careers activities being designed to fit around their lives, and the need for personalisation to their needs and aspirations. Such examples emphasise the importance of learning activities being useful, relevant, and practical, and designed with specific learner needs in mind.
We hope our readers enjoy this edition, and that it stimulates meaningful pedagogical reflection. Ongoing contributions to the journal are welcome at all times. We rely on author submissions for the continued development and success of the journal, so do please contact us if you have ideas for papers, or have a contribution that you would like to be considered for publication. 

Full Text:

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14234/elehe.v5i1.84


The Journal Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education can be found at: http://journals.northampton.ac.uk/index.php/elehe/index

Editorial Vol 3 No 1 - John Butcher

I am delighted to welcome readers to the third edition of Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education (ELEHE), published as an open access journal by the University of Northampton. This special issue presents seven articles which were prepared by participants on a ground-breaking postgraduate course run by the University of Northampton for university staff across the UK who work with international students, including support staff, international office staff, and academic staff. The articles presented in this issue of the journal were originally produced as the final assessment on the Postgraduate Certificate in Enhancing the International Student Experience course. As such, participants were required to outline amendments to their professional practice which incorporated the aims and intended outcomes of the course. Hence each of these articles represents reflective work in progress, contextualised in relation to their own roles, their own institutions and issues identified in the 
literature. I am pleased that Dr Dave Burnapp, the course leader who instigated the idea, has contributed an Introduction which contextualises the significance of the internationalisation agenda in HE, and an overview of each of the articles.


The course itself, and this special edition of the journal, complement the University of Northampton’s fourth Learning and Teaching conference Learning Global, which addressed the importance of internationalisation for universities, and in particular for learners in HE, and itself featured a pre-conference ‘Strategic Implications of Internationalising HE’ event showcasing a research project funded by the Higher Education Academy. The contemporary relevance of the internationalisation theme can be judged from the global attendees at the conference (including colleagues from Russia, China, Australia, the US and Nigeria) and the lively interest in issues around employability and assessment for international students, the role of technology in enhancing the international learner experience, and the challenge of transnational learning opportunities.


Importantly, the conference papers presented at Learning Global, and the articles included in this edition of ELEHE, offer a critical exploration of issues related to internationalising the curriculum, supporting international students and developing transnational learning partnerships. They all signpost the challenges faced by university staff and international learners in creating high quality student learning experiences. As such, they fulfil the original purpose of ELEHE, highlighted in my first editorial, to engage with the learner voice and use it to provide a research-informed critique of contemporary debates in HE.

So, congratulations to this sample of course participants who have become authors of journal articles – their persistence in adapting a piece of assessed work for publication offers another example of engagement with the student voice in enhancing the learner experience.

I am grateful, as ever, to the anonymous reviewers (drawn from the journal’s international editorial board and institutional advisory board) who diligently read and offered advice on each of the original articles

Table of Contents

Editorial

Editorial	PDF
John Butcher	1

Introduction from guest editor	PDF
Dave Burnapp	2-4

Articles

Improving the provision of pre-arrival information and support to international students via the use of online resources	PDF
Shelley Webster	5-19

Online support in study skills for international students at UCLAN	PDF
Paul James Reid	20-30

The Provision of Induction Activities for Imperial College London’s Collaborative PhD Students	PDF
Helen Challis	31-44

Assessment and International Students – black African Social Work students	PDF
Angie Bartoli	45-58

Boundaries, Processes and Participation: Integrating peer support through a buddy scheme	PDF
Roanna Alexandra Pain	59-73

Internationalisation in the UK HEI sector: a case study of the development of a collaborative Masters programme between the University of Northampton and the University of Madras	PDF
Terry Louis Tudor	74-84

Enhancing the International Advisory Service at the University of Edinburgh	PDF
Kim Pearson	85-94

ISSN: 2041-3122


To see all the articles in this volume go to:
http://journals.northampton.ac.uk/index.php/elehe/issue/view/3

The Journal Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education can be found at: http://journals.northampton.ac.uk/index.php/elehe/index

Editorial Vol 2 No 1 - John Butcher

It gives me great pleasure to welcome readers to the second edition of Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education (ELEHE), the University of Northampton’s flagship open access e-journal. If this is the first time you have come across this journal, I sincerely hope you enjoy what you read and feel able to recommend it to colleagues. As explained in the inaugural editorial, ELEHE is a fully refereed English language journal with an international outlook, addressing the emerging field of enhancement in higher education as it impacts on learners. The journal has a serious mission, to provide HE colleagues internationally an opportunity to publish and read scholarly work investigating the learner experience across all forms of higher education. We are driven by a commitment to participatory modes of research, especially research which explores the student journey through the student voice. Recognising scholarship around the learner experience is being undertaken by lecturers, researchers, study support staff, academic developers, librarians and policymakers, we take a broad view of our 
potential audience for this journal, and welcome both dialogue about what has been published, 
and potential contributions.

In the nine months that have elapsed since my first editorial, the even more volatile context in which HE operates seems to provide an especially pressing rationale for a journal researching the learner experience. In the UK, and globally, government spending cuts are likely to drive a
significant reconceptualisation of the student learning experience in HE. Issues likely to impact include: the rapid rise in attention given to the learning quality agenda (at a time of significant increases in fees); the increased scrutiny given to ‘graduateness’ and employability skills at a time of rising unemployment; the demand for greater flexibility in the delivery of learning, including the embedding of technology-enhanced learning as part of an enhanced learning experience.

Given all these external issues, in this second edition of ELEHE I am delighted to publish a range of articles which provide an evidence base from which to prompt critical reflection on the need to enhance the learning experience, and the barriers that might still inhibit student success. A key theme in this edition is inclusion: the extent to which universities which pronounce themselves committed to widening participation and broadening access need to scrutinise their activities to ensure a positive learning experience for all students. For example, the importance of pedagogic partnerships to scaffold the transition into HE is outlined in Lumsden et al, with a recognition that prior learning experiences need to be taken into account to increase retention and achievement for potentially vulnerable Education students. Related to this, the experience of dyslexic and non-dyslexic students on professional health courses are compared in Crouch’s article, with the support provided by Personal Academic Tutors highlighted. Extending our understanding of inclusivity in relation to HE assessment practices, Butcher et al researched some ‘hard-to-reach’ and struggling students, and as a result recommend fair and transparent assessment systems which allow all students to demonstrate what they know and can do.

A second theme arose from the university’s recent Learning Dialogues conference, at which the article from Powis was originally presented as a paper. In this, he emphasises the opportunity for universities to take account of student needs and preferences in relation to learning spaces, particularly the recognition of the places where extended learning takes place. His recommendation that universities ‘build-in’ the affective dimension for learners into their building plans is a valuable one. Related to this recognition of what students bring to their learning (and what assumptions cannot be made), Towle and Howe describe a useful methodology to elicit understanding of learners’ prior journeys through educational technology.

A third, and perhaps overarching theme, is provided by Northcott, who demonstrates the importance of Continuing Professional Development for education professionals, and its sustained impact on learner-centred teaching.

All these articles suggest the enhancement of the learner experience in HE is worthy of close scrutiny. I hope you find this second edition useful, stimulating and informative.

I am very grateful to all the authors for submitting their work for peer review, and to the anonymous reviewers (drawn from the journal’s international editorial board and institutional advisory board) for their hard work in reading and commenting on articles so promptly. The aspiration remains that ELEHE will be a biennial publication, and we aim to publish our third edition early summer 2011. For the first time, this will be a special themed edition, focussing on international dimensions to the learner experience. It will complement our next Learning and Teaching conference ‘Learning Global’ (May 2011). I look forward to receiving potential articles from a wide range of authors, addressed through:

• Substantive credible research of 4-6,000 words
• Critical case studies of institutional practice
• Shorter accounts of work in progress

Please contact the editor if you or your colleagues have ideas which merit dissemination through Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education.

Table of Contents

Editorial

Editorial	PDF
John Butcher	1-2

Articles

"We always come here" : investigating the social in social learning	PDF
Chris Powis	3-11

Collaborative practice in practice in enhancing the first year experience in Higher Education	PDF
Eunice Lumsden, Heather Mcbryde-Wilding, Hannah Rose	12-24

How might inclusive approaches to assessment enhance student learning in HE?	PDF
John Butcher, Paul Sedgwick, Lisa Lazard, Jayne Hey	25-40

‘Years after the course’: dialogues with mid-career practitioners about the resilience of professional learning from a higher education CPD programme	PDF
Joy Northcott	41-55

Experiences of non-dyslexic and dyslexic nursing and midwifery students: how best can their needs be met by Personal Academic Tutor support?	PDF
Anna Crouch	56-73

Work in progress

Transitions in higher education with technology and learning: methods for elicitation	PDF
Gemma Towle, Rob Howe	74-83

ISSN: 2041-3122


To see all the articles in this volume go to:
http://journals.northampton.ac.uk/index.php/elehe/issue/view/2

The Journal Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education can be found at: http://journals.northampton.ac.uk/index.php/elehe/index

Editorial Vol 1 No 1 - John Butcher

The launch of any new academic journal is always an exciting moment, and I am delighted to welcome readers to the inaugural edition of Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education (ELEHE). ELEHE is a fully-refereed English language journal with an international outlook, addressing the emerging field of enhancement in Higher Education as it impacts on learners. 

ELEHE’s origins, as the first open access e-journal from the University of Northampton (UK), is an important mark of the new university’s aspirations to develop pedagogic research and scholarship, and to share knowledge across the HE community. This context also informs the approach the journal will take: as a ‘teaching’ university serving the aspirations of its regional community, the institution places learners at the heart of its enhancement activities – ELEHE will provide HE colleagues internationally an opportunity to publish scholarly work investigating the enhancement of the learner experience across all forms of higher education. Open access through the Open Journals initiative is crucial to our dissemination strategy. 

Readers will rightly ask what will be distinctive about ELEHE. We believe ELEHE is a unique initiative that has a clear guiding purpose - to enthusiastically address the challenge of enhancing the learner experience in HE. It aims to stimulate debate around the educational theories and practices associated with learning in HE (in its broadest interpretation), to explore innovations which impact on learners, and to share effective practice across different HE contexts. It will draw on expertise in researching, describing and enhancing the student experience of learning, and thus providing evidence of the ‘student voice.’ The journal is interdisciplinary in scope, and diverse as to types of articles and methods. It welcomes critical, comparative and reflective approaches likely 
to set (as well as respond to) key agendas in HE learning. Focussing on the learner experience, it is intended to reflect a participatory paradigm in which the perspectives, experiences and understandings of learners are elicited in order to examine learning across HE. 


This editorial ‘welcome’ constitutes a statement of purpose for ELEHE, and places the journal in the context of broader events that currently structure and mark the field of the learner experience in Higher Education. The timeliness of this new publication becomes apparent when consideration is given to current debates affecting HE: about the need for innovative learning in mass HE systems; about the impact of sociocultural theories of learning in HE; of the aspiration to enhance learner experiences in HE at a time of higher fees, global economic collapse and growing unemployment; of policy drivers around employability and inclusivity. A key purpose of the journal is to share scholarship between disciplines, and encourage inter-disciplinary research into the learner experience, to offer authors and readers a substantial space in which to disseminate research, and (importantly) in not limiting perspectives to one discipline. 

ELEHE will be outward-facing in the breadth of its engagement with all scholars 
interested in the learner experience, and in offering open access to all potential readers. It is envisaged this will enable it to grow into a key setting for dialogue around effective learnering in HE. It seeks to provide a learned forum through which practitioners in all aspects of learning and teaching, academic development and study support can debate emerging issues as HE confronts the challenge of more students, studying more flexibly in a managerialist and performative environment. ELEHE will seek to raise questions about the extent to which deep learning is embedded in HE. Authors will be encouraged to critique unexamined discourses around learning, and to draw on disciplinary cultures beyond their own, debating across settings and across disciplines. The journal aims to support scholarship across the widest range of staff supporting learners in HE. It is envisaged this will include: lecturers; researchers; study support staff; academic developers; librarians; policy makers. 

In this inaugural edition, I am delighted to include a range of articles investigating enhancement of the learner experience across undergraduate and postgraduate provision, across campus-based and distance learning students, and across different disciplines. Each article originated in papers presented at the University of Northampton’s second Learning and Teaching conference, Transitions. Within this diversity, there are clear themes emerging which align with the journal’s mission, and which present a baton to be taken up by future authors. Each article is informed by close attention to the learner voice. 

One theme is the opportunity to enhance employability, which surfaces in this edition through exploration of Engineering students’ enhancement pedagogy around creativity and problem-solving (Adams et al), and the valuing of work placements by all stakeholders (Brown and Ahmed). 

A second theme is the enhancement of professional learning, which emerges through exploration of the Education doctorate student’s journey to professional self-esteem (Butcher and Sieminski), and through the importance of appropriate support for the transition to qualified Social Work status (Bartoli et al). 

A third theme is around better understanding of enhancement according to cultural and international needs, explored within a Virtual Third Space of trans-national contexts (Burnapp and Zhao) and described for African students (Bartoli et al). 

A fourth theme is inclusivity as an enhancement activity, which is analysed through the reasonable adjustments made by tutors to support a blind student, which in turn benefited all students (Enjelvin). 

As the forgoing articles demonstrate, the enhancement of the learner experience in Higher Education is worthy of close scrutiny. This first edition of ELEHE offers a modest initial contribution to the field, which is intended to develop into a valuable space for practitioners and scholars to reflect critically on the enhancement agenda affecting the learning experience. 

I hope you find this first edition of Enhancing the Leaner Experience in Higher Education useful, stimulating and informative. We intend ELEHE will build into a 
journal offering student voice-informed perspectives to challenge taken-for-granted orthodoxies. I am grateful to all the authors for submitting their work for peer review, and responding so promptly to suggestions for enhancement. I am particularly grateful to all the anonymous reviewers (drawn from the journal’s institutional advisory board and international editorial board) for their hard work in reading and commenting on articles in the context of an inaugural edition. 

ELEHE will be a biennial publication (December and June) and I look forward to 
receiving potential articles from as wide a range of readers as possible. The journal will actively seek three approaches to articles: substantive credible research of 4-6000 words theorising the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of effective learning in HE; 4000 word critical case studies of institutional practice out of which original conceptualisations of learning in HE can be considered (the ‘what’ questions); shorter reports of work in progress inviting dialogue around learner voices. The journal will not publish purely descriptive accounts of data collection, or uncritical accounts of teaching methods. Each edition will feature a minimum of five articles, contextualised through an editorial essay.

Table of Contents

Editorial

Editorial	PDF
John Butcher	1-3

Articles

Problem solving and creativity in Engineering: turning novices into professionals	PDF
Jonathan Adams, Stefan Kaczmarczyk, Philip Picton, Peter Demian	4-18

The value of work placements	PDF
George Brown, Yussuf Ahmed	19-29

Voices from the chat rooms: research into the experiences of Chinese students participating in transnational education programmes as reported on internet social networks	PDF
Dave Burnapp, Wei Zhao	30-43

Enhancing professional self-esteem: learners’ journeys on a distance-learning Doctorate in Education (EdD)	PDF
John Butcher, Sandy Sieminski	44-55

Teaching French to a non-sighted undergraduate: enhancing everyone’s learning	PDF
Geraldine Enjelvin	56-69

Work in progress

Learning from African students	PDF
Angie Bartoli, Sue Kennedy, Tedam Prospera	70-79

ISSN: 2041-3122
To see all the articles in this volume go to:
http://journals.northampton.ac.uk/index.php/elehe/issue/view/1




The Journal Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education can be found at: http://journals.northampton.ac.uk/index.php/elehe/index

Editorial - 2012

Editorial

Rachel Maunder, Scott Turner, Simon Sneddon, Anna Crouch

Abstract

An introduction to this re-launch edition of the journal by the new members of the editorial team

Full Text: PDF


The Journal Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education can be found at: http://journals.northampton.ac.uk/index.php/elehe/index